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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22530514">In Loving Memory</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LolMouse/pseuds/LolMouse'>LolMouse</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Magic: The Gathering (Card Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Chandra likes (decidedly female) girls, Chandra totally is into Liliana too, F/F, Goodbye Magic we loved ye, Gruulfriends - Freeform, Jund is Bisexual, War of the Spark: Boresaken</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-29 03:02:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,811</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22530514</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LolMouse/pseuds/LolMouse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Chandra and Nissa have to have a little talk about Gideon Jura.</p><p>A little farewell.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chandra Nalaar/Gideon Jura (Mentioned), Chandra Nalaar/Nissa Revane</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>In Loving Memory</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Chandra paced aimlessly through the still soot-scorched streets of Ravnica, half taking in the destruction wrought upon the city, half trying to ignore it. Reconstruction had already begun, with agents of varying guilds jockeying for whose artisanal and architectural principles would own a given corner. Would it be the white archways of Selesnya, the vaulted domes of Azorius, the fortress-constabularies of Boros?</p><p>They could make the blasted ruins of Gruul for all she cared.</p><p>Her feet travelled down the street, every scorch mark a memory. Some of them had been people. Some had been made by her. A few had been friends. The three intersected more than she liked.</p><p>She slowed down, recognizing where her feet had taken her. The bonfire had been so huge the cleanup job had been left for giants, and they had barely made a dent in it. Bolas' army of "Eternals," burned in a massive pyre by her, Samut and Jaya. She knew perfectly well that Dimir agents and Golgari scroungers had scoured the ash and cinders for pieces of the blue soul-trapping stone for their own use and had come up with nothing. She had made damn sure of that.</p><p>The labourers picked at the ash as the memory of the heat washed over her. And with that memory, the sensation of distance and contemplation that came with staring into a flame.</p><p>You didn't have to be a monk studying a candle's flame at Keral Keep to understand this sensation. Everyone who had stared into a fire had known it. That contemplative, visionary mood that overtook the senses, fascinating you, drawing you into it, as if to invite you to see something mystical. It could reveal the future, bring a new light to the present, or illuminate the past.</p><p>But all Chandra could see, all she had seen since the day of Bolas' defeat, was Gideon.</p><p>Shouts of alarm arose among the workers sweeping the ash, and Chandra opened her eyes. The ash had ignited, a fire spreading among it. 'Wood doesn't burn twice,' Jaya had taught her, and she looked closer. It wasn't spreading among the ash, but among the bonfire that had been there. The fire was clinging to fuel it had already burned.</p><p>The memory of the fire was replaying itself in front of her. Her memory. How was she fuelling it?</p><p>She grasped the sides of her head in frustration. Was this what she was reduced to? An out-of-control novice pyromancer, endangering lives with her powers again?</p><p>She felt an urgent need to leave, quickly sifting through the options in her head. Kaladesh? No, Ghirapur was also rebuilding, and her mother would be more productive overseeing it than comforting her. Amonkhet? The place of the Gatewatch's defeat? She couldn't bear it. Regatha? She was not in a contemplative mood, and it reminded her too much of-</p><p>"Chandra!" The voice rang out, clear as a bell. Chandra looked behind her. It was Nissa, of course, clad in vibrant spring green, glowing as bright as the fire was. Who else could it be at a time like this? The elf was approaching her, calling out in concern.</p><p>Concern. Yeah, right.</p><p>Chandra made a flash decision and ran at the bonfire, her hair and fists igniting, and leapt into its heart. It seemed to double in intensity for a moment before disappearing, leaving no trace of the Planeswalker.</p><p>Nissa walked to the ash and bent down to touch it. It was cold.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The Roil was much as Chandra remembered it, meaning it looked nothing like what she remembered. The churning soil had created a massive outcropping propped up by what looked like the remnant of a broken Hedron, its pieces still floating in the air. Somewhere here on Zendikar, too, there was a rebuilding effort. It was the constant theme of her life, leaving behind others to pick up the pieces.</p><p>It usually wasn't her doing it.</p><p>She ascended the outcropping and sat down in the manner she had been taught, legs crossed, eyes open, and let the Plane's mana flow into and through her. Maybe she'd manage to light the entire world on fire this time. </p><p>Her fire ignited again, billowing into the air. She let it flow as it willed, free and uncontrolled. </p><p>"Chandra," came that bell-like voice again. The pyromancer twisted around. It was her again barefoot on the rapidly drying earth, advancing as close to the heat as the elf dared.</p><p>"And how did you know where I would go when I didn't?" Chandra demanded.</p><p>"Where else would you go?" Nissa answered. "Where else but to where the Gatewatch began?"</p><p>Chandra turned back around, staring into the distance. "Yeah? Not to where I first met him? Not to his home?"</p><p>"If this were only about him, perhaps you would have."</p><p>"What, have you been studying with Jace now?"</p><p>Chandra heard Nissa's footsteps approaching, even though her heat was still intensifying. "I have been studying you. I know you. I lo-"</p><p>"If you know me so well," she shouted, "you'd know to leave me alone!"</p><p>A great fireball dominated the sky, shrouding them in billowing smoke. Nissa covered her face, coughing and channelling the Plane's power to clear the air around her.</p><p>Neither of them said anything for a while. Nissa sat down on the earth behind Chandra.</p><p>"This is difficult," the elf said. "I never know how far I can open up to you, and I'm always... a little afraid. Even after what we said on Ravnica."</p><p>Chandra said nothing.</p><p>"When you're this upset, I never know what to say. I have worried that you would simply spill over like a bursting dam. And now you... have."</p><p>"If I'm so difficult, then just leave. Make it easier on yourself."</p><p>"I will not."</p><p>"Yeah? As if you haven't fled from me before."</p><p>"Yes. And that is why I won't do it again."</p><p>"Even if I tell you to your face that I want you to?"</p><p>"Chandra, if you had wanted to make it impossible for me to find you, you wouldn't have come to Zendikar."</p><p>Chandra bristled, but didn't reply.</p><p>"The soul of this Plane speaks to me. Finding you was trivial, and you knew it would be."</p><p>"As if I knew what I was doing."</p><p>Nissa scooted herself closer. Chandra's fire dimmed in response. "This is where all of us swore our oaths. Me, you... and Gideon."</p><p>"You're making this about yourself again."</p><p>"It's about all three of us."</p><p>Chandra sat still for another moment, then turned around where she sat, looking Nissa in the eyes. "Fine. Let's do this again. I figured out that I loved Gideon, and he's dead. There. Then we two make a, I don't know, a wartime love confession, and nothing feels right about it after the fight is over, so you ask me to back off. End of story."</p><p>Nissa looked at her reproachfully. "That is not... Chandra."</p><p>"What's wrong with just moving forward, Nissa? Why ask me to dwell on this- this pain? This thing that is dead?"</p><p>"Gideon Jura is dead. That doesn't mean your love is."</p><p>"Maybe it should be!" Chandra stood up and the heat playing around her doubled in intensity, causing Nissa to flinch away. "And maybe if you're so afraid of being burned, you shouldn't play with fire at all!"</p><p>Nissa got up, backed away a few paces, and then stood straight and defiant. "It's too late for that. I love you too much."</p><p>Chandra's tears were instantly burned away, but they still stung. "And that just isn't enough for you!"</p><p>Nissa barely conjured a wall of earth in time to intercept the fireball that blasted it apart. They stared at each other, equally shocked, for a long moment. Then Chandra yelled, and another wall was blasted apart, leaving them both showered in dirt.</p><p>Something about staining that perfect spring green appealed to Chandra's instincts. She assembled a spell that resembled a pyroclastic flow, but felt something on her leg a second before it was swept out from under her. The spell shattered into the air, and she looked at her ankle. Some kind of crawling vine had wound itself around it, still coiling and growing as it attempted to entangle her legs.</p><p>She snarled and quickly burned the vine away, but something cold struck her face, steaming away. She looked up. Rain clouds were gathering above with an unnatural intensity.</p><p>If Nissa was hoping to snuff her out, she'd be disappointed. The landscape was changed, but Zendikar was not, and Nissa had been the one to show Chandra how its mana flowed. A leyline provided all the connection she needed. She got up as the rain fell around her, and became obscured in a cloud of steam as it vaporized feet away from her.</p><p>She stalked forward, not able to see Nissa's exact position, but similarly shielded herself. "Why don't you conjure some of your elementals, Nissa? Really make this a duel?"</p><p>"This is between us, not them." The reply was indistinct. Chandra couldn't pinpoint where Nissa was.</p><p>Chandra began constructing a new spell, a ring of fire. If she didn't know where Nissa was, she would simply burn everything around her and force her out. Then she saw a shape in the steam and redirected her magic at it. She had a second to regret her action as Nissa was engulfed entirely.</p><p>"No!" Chandra's heart beat faster, and she ran towards the conflagration she had created, only to stop dead in her tracks. More vines had risen from the earth, entangling her.</p><p>"Nissa!" Her hair went out.</p><p>Then a shape emerged from the flame, walking forward with purpose. The flames dissipated, and Nissa was there, dirtied but otherwise unscathed, slowly advancing on a stunned Chandra until she was mere inches away from her face.</p><p>"Chandra, Please."</p><p>The plea cut at Chandra's heart in a way no magic could have done. In one swift motion, she ripped one arm free and slapped Nissa. The elf staggered back a pace. Chandra’s eyes went wide.</p><p>"I-" Chandra's words were cut off as Nissa slapped her back. The elf seemed more shocked at what she'd done than Chandra was.</p><p>Chandra blinked, then ripped herself free of the vines with a battlecry and jumped on Nissa, sending them both tumbling into the wet earth. The rain had turned the outcropping into a mudslide, sending them both sliding down as they grappled with one another. They finally came to rest at its bottom, Nissa straddling Chandra, propping herself up by her elbows, both women panting with exertion.</p><p>They looked at each other, bloodied and scratched and muddy, and neither one knew who started the kiss, a deep and passionate and wild thing that overtook them both. They moved, Chandra now on top, desperately kissing at the woman she loved, holding on to her for dear life.</p><p>A great bestial bellow interrupted them, and they looked up. A Baloth had found them, larger than any Chandra had ever seen.</p><p>Nissa put a finger on Chandra's lips and whispered. "Don't move."</p><p>The Baloth's feet shook even the muddied earth as it advanced slowly, curiously, and sniffed the air. After a few sniffs, the beast's hot breath passing over Chandra's skin, it bellowed again, a deafening sound they felt in their bones. Then it made an odd snorting sound and turned away, trundling back into the recesses of the Roil.</p><p>Chandra felt her body go limp as the tension left it, falling into Nissa's embrace. They stayed like that, Chandra's warmth slowly returning, shielding them from the cold of the rain as she shared it, until the clouds above dissipated and all was still again.</p><p>"I love you, Nissa," Chandra said after an eternity.</p><p>"I love you, Chandra," came the reply.</p><p>They sat up after a time, still holding each other close.</p><p>"I think we could use some tea," Nissa said suddenly.</p><p>Chandra couldn't help but laugh. "I'm not in any condition to Planeswalk back to the Gatewatch," she said.</p><p>"We have everything we need, if you'll help me."</p><p>"Oh?"</p><p>Nissa got up, unsteadily at first, and pushed some mud aside. A small plant, much like any other to Chandra's eyes, was revealed. Nissa smiled and whispered something, and the plant grew around her fingers, growing flowering buds the color of Chandra's hair. Nissa picked at the leaves and brought them back to the pyromancer.</p><p>"You can help me dry these," she said, not waiting for confirmation before she turned her attention to the earth again.</p><p>Chandra shrugged. It was complicated; it wasn't a matter of fire alone. But sure enough, the leaves seemed perfectly willing to play along to her touch, becoming dry and brittle as she ran her fingers across them.  As she did so, she watched as Nissa dug at the earth, her tattoos glowing with her magic, and the earth responded in kind, pushing its soil upwards. She then sat down with several lumps and spun them around in the air. Chandra realized that it was clay, spinning as if on an invisible wheel as Nissa shaped it.</p><p>She wasn't very good at it. Chandra put the leaves aside on a rock and walked up to Nissa, sitting behind her, placing her hand around Nissa's, guiding them.</p><p>"We make our own at Keral Keep," she explained. Nissa leaned into her and nodded. Together, they shaped a rough pair of cups and a kettle. Without being prompted, Chandra let her fire play across them, firing the clay more rapidly than was natural, careful not to shatter it with her practiced touch.</p><p>Next was water. Clean pools had gathered on leaves and in the hollows of stone. Nissa gathered it, and then ripped one of her sleeves for use as a sieve. Chandra made a fire, and they set the kettle on it to boil. An unearthed stone provided both their seat and a table.</p><p>"Chandra," Nissa said suddenly. "Let's talk this time. Properly."</p><p>Chandra's face fell, but she nodded.</p><p>"I know it hurts," Nissa continued. "And it's not going away. But I didn't ask you to remember and cherish Gideon's memory because I want you to hurt, or because my love for you isn't... passionate. I am not asking you to just be friends while you grieve."</p><p>"Yeah, you made that pretty clear just now," Chandra said wryly.</p><p>The kettle was ready, and Nissa poured a cup for each of them before continuing.</p><p>"You love him. You still do, and you always will. He will always be a part of you. Loving me is not a betrayal to yourself or him."</p><p>Chandra looked into her tea, feeling the cup's warmth in her hands. "And you're just okay with that? Me loving a dead man, while I say I love you?"</p><p>"How could I be anything else?"</p><p>Chandra choked, and felt Nissa's hand on her shoulder.</p><p>"Chandra, your heart and your passions aren't contained. You love him, and you love me. Both can be true, and neither will diminish just because he's gone and I’m here."</p><p>"And how are you so calm about that? Sharing my heart with a dead man?"</p><p>Nissa swirled her tea and took her first sip. Chandra followed suit. It wasn't as bitter as she'd expected from unsweetened, barely dried leaves.</p><p>"Your love for him is part of what I love about you, because it is part of you. It took me too long to recognize that. There is so much about us and myself I still don’t understand, but I don’t have to understand it to accept it.”</p><p>Chandra moved closer to Nissa, sitting shoulder to shoulder. "It hurts. I just don't want the pain to come between us."</p><p>Nissa put her arm around Chandra. "What makes you think I'd love you less just because you're hurting?"</p><p>They sat like that, companionably, sipping their tea and refilling their cups.</p><p>"Now if you told me you were into Liliana as well, then we'd have words."</p><p>Chandra snorted. "How is she doing, anyway?"</p><p>"...Not much better."</p><p>Chandra smiled. Nissa couldn't help caring any more than she could. Despite everything.</p><p>"So tell me," Chandra said. "How did you do that trick? Walking out of my fire like it was nothing?"</p><p>"It was nothing," Nissa said. "You're the one who didn't burn me. I didn't have to do anything."</p><p>Chandra stared.</p><p>"The ashes on Ravnica were cold to the touch," Nissa said, shrugging. "Whatever it is you were burning, it wasn't me, or them." She leaned her head onto Chandra's shoulder. "And now I know for sure I won't get burned by you."</p><p>Wood doesn't burn twice. Chandra closed her eyes. She'd just been burning herself, fuelling her own pain. She looked at Nissa's face, taking it in, before kissing her again.</p><p>The rest of the tea went cold after a while.</p>
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